Many people appreciate tastes and smells that are provided by smoke. The smell of a fire burning, incense, meat cooked over charcoal all provide tastes and smells that please many people and enhance the flavor of what they eat.
There are several prior methods of providing such flavors. For example, cooking food over an open fire infuses some of the aromas from the smoke of the fire into the food, enhancing the flavor of the food. This is often performed using aromatic woods such as mesquite.
Another example is smoke provided as a liquid for adding to foods while cooking.
Still another example is a small, hand-held machine that is filled with wood pieces that smolders and produces smoke. The latter, is typically used to add smoke to liquor such as bourbon.
For adding a smoke flavor to a liquor, the liquor cannot be placed over an open fire and it is not acceptable to add a liquid such as adding smoke provided as a liquid. It is desirable to infuse smoke into the liquor or onto a glass that will eventually hold the liquor. Devices currently in the market accept a quantity of wood fragments, then the wood fragments are ignited to smolder for coating a glass with smoke, but this device has many drawbacks. These devices have no control of the incineration and an unknowing individual may use a material that is too flammable. These devices have no control as to the size and density of the material being smoldered and it is up to the user to use correct wood fragment sizes. These devices have no receptacles for supporting a glass during smoke generation. These devices have no control as to the amount of smoke generated. These devices have no filtering to prevent certain materials from traveling to the destination (glass), especially carcinogens. Further, the user of these devices must load the device with wood fragments/particles and later clean the devices of ashes.
What is needed is a system that will generate smoke in a controlled way while providing repeatable control to the generation of such smoke.